Kim Basinger, the Oscar-winning actress who helped define Hollywood glamour in the 1980s, was seen out and about in Los Angeles this week.
Basinger first became a major screen presence after appearing as a Bond girl opposite Sean Connery, before cementing her status with Mickey Rourke in the steamy 1986 drama 9 ½ Weeks.
Off screen, her life also drew intense public scrutiny, particularly during her high-profile marriage to Alec Baldwin and the bitter divorce that followed.
On Monday, the actress was photographed running errands, with her signature blonde hair pulled into a bun and much of her face shielded behind oversized black sunglasses.
The 72-year-old, whose daughter Ireland Baldwin recently criticized Perez Hilton, kept things low-key in a relaxed outfit featuring a T-shirt, hoodie and jeans.
She appeared to go for minimal makeup, carrying a large striped handbag and finishing the casual look with black shoes.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Basinger’s representative for comment.
Kim Basinger, one of the most recognizable Hollywood stars of the 1980s, was seen running errands in Los Angeles this week
When she was spotted Monday running errands, her still blonde hair was swept up into a bun and her features were partly obscured by large dark shades
The 72-year-old, whose daughter Ireland Baldwin recently denounced Perez Hilton , draped her willowy figure in a casual ensemble of a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans
Born in Georgia in 1953, Kimila Ann Basinger was the scion of a showbiz family, her father having been a pianist and trumpeter in the Big Band Era.
Meanwhile her mother appeared in a number of pictures starring Esther Williams, the competitive swimmer who became a 1940s movie star known as the ‘bathing beauty’ for her frequent musical numbers involving synchronized swimming.
Basinger entered showbiz as a model before breaking into acting in the 1970s, during which she turned down what became the Cheryl Ladd role on Charlie’s Angels.
She landed a spot as a Bond girl in 1983 via Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery’s last outing as 007, and enjoyed a long heyday through the following two decades.
In 1986, she and Rourke led the cast of 9 ½ Weeks as an art gallerist and a Wall Street financier who became entwined in a sadomasochistic sexual relationship.
Although the movie flopped in theaters in America, the provocative material proved enticing enough to the public that 9 ½ Weeks became a sensation on home video.
Basinger became a bona fide star and the movie’s director Adrian Lyne began a blazing streak as the reigning maestro of the erotic thriller, subsequently adding such classic entries to the genre as Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful.
She then featured in Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the title character facing off against Jack Nicholson’s Joker.
She landed a spot as a Bond girl in 1983 via Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery’s last outing as 007, and enjoyed a long heyday through the following two decades
In 1986, Basinger and Mickey Rourke led the cast of 9 ½ Weeks as an art gallerist and a Wall Street financier who become entwined in a sadomasochistic sexual relationship
Although the movie flopped in theaters in America, the provocative material proved enticing enough to the public that 9 ½ Weeks became a sensation on home video
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The actress became a bona fide star and the movie’s director Adrian Lyne began a run as the reigning maestro of the erotic thriller
Basinger first met Baldwin on the set of their 1991 romantic comedy The Marrying Man, pictured, and they went down the aisle two years later. They welcomed their daughter Ireland in 1995
In 1992, she returned to the erotic thriller genre with Final Analysis, in which she played a mobster’s wife who begins an affair with her sister’s psychiatrist.
Richard Gere played the therapist and Uma Thurman featured as the sister, with Julia Roberts’ brother Eric Roberts in the role of the cuckolded husband.
In 1997, she starred with Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce in the neo-noir LA Confidential, which netted her an Oscar for best supporting actress.
She first met Baldwin on the set of their 1991 romantic comedy The Marrying Man, and they went down the aisle two years later before welcoming Ireland in 1995.
However, the marriage imploded in 2000, triggering a legal slanging match that included a rancorous custody battle and a divorce that took two years to finalize.
When the couple first separated, Kim’s father Don Basinger alleged that Baldwin’s temper had been to blame for the failure of their relationship.
‘Alec has this anger where he reaches down for something that hurts, something that may have happened a year or two ago, and then abuses Kim with it,’ Don claimed to People magazine. ‘But it’s when it started happening in front of Ireland that Kim finally said: “Well, I’m not going to put up with that!”‘
The stunning blonde featured in Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the title character facing off against Jack Nicholson’s Joker
In 1992, she returned to the erotic thriller genre with Final Analysis, in which she played a mobster’s wife who begins an affair with her sister’s psychiatrist, played by Richard Gere
In 1997, she starred with Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce in the neo-noir LA Confidential which netted her an Oscar for best supporting actress
In 2007, when Ireland was only 11 years old, Baldwin left her a scathing voicemail in which he branded her a ‘rude, thoughtless little pig’ after she missed a phone call from him that she had known was coming.
Ultimately, the court decided on joint custody, ending a protracted dogfight that unfolded in the headlines and racked up $3 million in legal fees.
Ireland has since developed an ability to laugh about the voicemail, and even Basinger remarked in 2022 that she and Baldwin are ‘all fine and we all get along, whatever,’ during an appearance on Red Table Talk.
However, she also called Baldwin ‘a challenge’ and alleged he was not ’emotionally or mentally available’ for difficult conversations about Ireland’s anxiety.
Basinger herself suffers from agoraphobia, which at one point grew so severe she was unable to drive for ‘almost six, seven months,’ she said on Red Table Talk.
On the romantic front, she has been involved since 2014 with her hairdresser Mitch Stone, whom she was friends with for 20 years before the relationship progressed beyond the platonic stage, she told the Tbilisi-based Georgian Journal.
As recently as 2017, Basinger added another erotic thriller to her filmography in the shape of the Fifty Shades of Grey sequel Fifty Shades Darker.
She featured as the older woman nicknamed ‘Mrs Robinson’ who initiated Jamie Dornan’s lead character Christian Grey in sadomasochism when he was only 15.
